Epochal revelations are frustrating. They are frustrating because, unlike
personal spiritual revelations, they are by definition revelations meant
to transform and enhance every individual's spiritual life. Thus those
of us who espouse this revelation find ourselves living a very paradoxical
existence. I use the word "paradoxical" because, while we marvel
at The Urantia Book's transformation of our own perspectives, we may sometimes
find ourselves troubled by the huge numbers of our preoccupied and disinterested
brethren. Due to this revelation's immediately personal spiritual focus,
its macro-sociological consequences may be many years away. Therefore,
many of us find ourselves struggling with a demon of sorts. Now of course,
this is not one of those Halloween demons that lifts us up above our beds,
scares our mothers, or makes our skin change color. Rather it is a mind
demon that whines and scoffs. It whines for some truly momentous world
event that would undeniably validate the Truths of the Urantia Book, while
it scoffs at the subjective validation we get from our own souls.

I would wager that all of us in the Urantia movement have experienced
this demon at one time or another. We deal with it as best we can. But
there is in fact something afoot in the world--something that this demon
might find very interesting. I am therefore writing this essay as a sacrifice
to our communal "demon-of-the-whine-and-scoff." There will be
two acts in the sacrificial ritual: the first will consist of familiarizing
our demon with a momentous world event; the second will present an appropriate
context for interpreting this momentous world event, i.e., a context within
which our demon will be compelled to recognize this event as the Supreme's
final macro-institutional preparation for the fifth epochal revelation.
This essay will argue that (1) the planet has reached a consensus in favor
of economic and political liberalism; (2) humanity's three macro-institutional
categories--economic, political, and religious--have a history of adopting
each others' essential canons, and that economic and political liberalism
are largely results of just such an institutional osmosis; (3) it is logical
to induce from (1) and (2) that religion, being the only remaining macro-institutional
category that remains largely authoritarian/non-liberal, will soon complement
liberal political and economic institutions by adopting liberal principles
also; and finally, (4) The Urantia Book is liberal religion.

The Event

In the summer of 1989 the Deputy Director of the State Department's
Policy Planning Staff, Francis Fukuyama, published an article in The National
Interest entitled "The End of History?," in which he raised an
intellectual tempest by announcing the "...unabashed victory of economic
and political liberalism" over all "...viable systematic alternatives"
(p.3). He wrote: "What we may be witnessing is not just the end of
the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history,
but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological
evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the
final form of human government" (p.4).

Fukuyama characterizes the twentieth century as a period of ideological
struggle that pitted two alternative ideologies, fascism and communism,
against liberalism. At the beginning of the twentieth century liberalism
in Europe and the United States had many chronic problems. Fascists and
communists blamed them upon liberalism's inherent contradictions. By fascist
and communist lights these problems were the creation, not of inferior
people, inferior decisions or non-liberal historical influences, but of
the liberal structure and philosophy itself. Thus, these problems could
not be resolved within the context of modern liberalism.

Fukuyama writes that fascism and communism arose as alternative systems.
Fascism emerged in the early twentieth century in response to liberalism's
problems of political weakness, materialism, moral relativism, and lack
of community spirit. World War II and humanity's rejection of ultranationalism--with
its promise of unending conflict--subsequently consigned fascism to history's
proverbial dustbin. Communism, however, was a more serious challenge (p.9).

Marx asserted that liberalism's inherent contradictions were epitomized
by the irreconcilable interests of capital vs. the interests of labor.(see
Tucker 1978,192). Lenin and Stalin created one of world history's most
profound social disasters, the Soviet Union, in the name of resolving this
so-called liberal contradiction. But as we know today and as Fukuyama pointed
out in his 1989 article, Marxism as an ideology has lost all credibility.
Notwithstanding the Tiananmen incident, even communist China is moving
in a liberal direction. China's southern province is a center of entrepreneurial
activity and special enterprise zones have proliferated among its major
cities.

And what of the contradiction Marx referred to--that of capital and
labor? Fukuyama holds that it is largely resolved in the contemporary liberal
welfare democracy. "Though there are rich people and poor people,
capital and labor, the root causes of economic inequality have more to
do with individuals' premodern cultural and social characteristics than
with the underlying legal and social structure of our society, which remains
fundamentally egalitarian and moderately redistributionist" (Fukuyama
1989, p.9). Fukuyama holds that the economic problems that remain subsequent
to the planet's application of political and economic liberalism are solvable
merely by "...economic calculation, the endless solving of technical
problems, environmental concerns and the satisfying of consumer demands"
(p.18). Fukuyama remarks wistfully that "Perhaps the very prospect
of centuries of boredom at the end of history will serve to get history
started once again" (p.18). But is "history" really over?
Has humanity already discovered the most profound macro-institutional structures?

Even in the most advanced liberal democracies many of the problems that
spawned fascism and Marxism, i.e., political weakness, materialism, moral
relativism, lack of community spirit, and the huge gap between the rich
and poor, remain as severe obstacles to the public good notwithstanding
Fukuyama's "fundamentally egalitarian and moderately redistributionist"
liberalism. Several problems have gotten decidedly worse since Fukuyama's
1989 article. It is important to note, however, that these problems' persistence
in no way contradicts Fukuyama's fundamental observation, i.e., the planetary
consensus concerning political and economic liberalism; instead, their
presence implies that Fukuyama's social therapeutic scheme of "boring"
"...economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems,
environmental concerns and the satisfying of consumer demands" may
be incomplete. The implication is that "the end of history" may
not have occurred. There is more significant history to make; but it is
perhaps "history" of a different character. This new history
is where The Urantia Book comes in. But before pursuing the nature of this
new history, I must more carefully define one of this essay's most important
terms.

If we assume that Fukuyama's fundamental thesis is correct--and I believe
it is--that liberal economics and politics is now the accepted planetary
norm, what has humankind finally accepted? Fukuyama never precisely defines
liberalism (there may be no universally accepted definition); but a definition
is required for the purposes of this essay. Robert Fowler writes that liberalism
consists of three closely related principles: "(1) a commitment to
skeptical reason, an affirmation of pragmatic intelligence, and an uneasiness
about both abstract philosophical thinking and nonrational modes of knowledge;
(2) enthusiasm in principle (and increasingly in practice) for tolerance
not only in political terms but much more obviously in terms of lifestyle
and social norms; (3) affirmation of the central importance of the individual
and individual freedom" (1989, p. 4).

When Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776 he articulated liberalism
as applied to economics:

The natural effort which every man is continually making to better his
own condition is the principle which keeps the economic mechanism in activity.
The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better
his condition is the principle from which public and national, as well
as private opulence is originally derived (qtd. in Morrow p.65).

Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left
perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both
his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man,
or order of men. The sovereign is completely discharged from a duty, in
the attempt to perform which he must always be exposed to innumerable delusions,
and for the proper performance of which no human wisdom or knowledge could
ever be sufficient; the duty of superintending the industry of private
people, and of directing it towards the employment most suitable to the
interest of society (qtd. in Friedman p.20).

The United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights among many other
Western national systems applied liberalism to politics. John Stuart Mill,
in his famous essay "On Liberty" offered another very succinct
canon of liberalism--subsequently known as the "Harm Principle."
This principle affirms that

...the sole end for which mankind is warranted, individually or collectively,
in interfering with the liberty of action of any one, is self-protection,
and that the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over
any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm
to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient
warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it
will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because,
in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These
are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or
persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting
him with any evil in case he do otherwise.

To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must
be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct
of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns
others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is,
of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual
is sovereign (qtd. in Diggs p.190).

With liberalism now more or less defined I can now conclude this section
by pointing out that the scholarly community by and large agrees with one
part of Fukuyama's argument--that the world community has, in spirit if
not in fact, adopted the liberal economic and political paradigm, and that
there appear to be no more credible alternatives. This is a momentous world
event by virtually any standard. But the event's implications are likewise
momentous, especially for those of us in the Fifth Epochal Fellowship.
In the next section I will discuss these implications and the role that
The Urantia Book may play in the world events that follow.

Feeding Time

Sociologists, historians, anthropologists, political scientists and
others have arbitrarily divided humankind's social institutions into three
general categories: political institutions, economic institutions and religious
institutions. Fukuyama presents a convincing argument that two out of three
of the planet's major social institutions--those of politics and economics--have
adopted liberal norms and parameters. If I might be allowed the use of
some inductive logic, it would appear that the next phase of planetary
social evolution and ideological conflict will concern the adoption of
liberal principles by the third and final category of social institutions--the
planet's religious establishment. And conveniently enough, it is at just
this time that The Urantia Book appears. But before dealing with The Urantia
Book's role in this upcoming struggle I must answer a very important question
concerning the feasibility of my implication/hypothesis. Would it be unusual
for the world's three macro-institutions (political, economic and religious)
to borrow philosophies and norms from each other?

In order to illustrate the precedent for this brand of institutional
osmosis I will briefly highlight several important aspects of European
political/economic and religious evolution. Aristotle (384-322 B.C. ) undertook,
principally in Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics, to construct a science
of the polis. He understood the polis or city/state as an association whose
primary purpose was the formation of character--a means of creating quality
citizens (Diamond 1976, p.79). For him the polis was an instrument by which
the statesman could make the citizenry self-sufficient in goods, and fine-tune
personality unification; it was as much concerned as any church with the
virtue of its citizens (Diggs p.11-12). But it is important to emphasize
that Aristotle and the Athenians of his time had no true religion worthy
of the name. Their system of gods was more an intellectual creation than
a standard for normative valuations. Thus Aristotle's concept of the polis
naturally included elements that were soon to fall under other jurisdictions.
There was absolutely no separation of political, economic or religious
institutions.

Christianity radically transformed Aristotle's classic state concept.
And it is here that we see an example of how a wholly religious concept
modified a political/economic concept. Saint Paul said "For ye are
all one in Christ Jesus" (qtd in Diggs p.17), and later the Christian
Church became the representative of the Word of God. Thus the Christian
could quote Aristotle in arguing that civil law was subject to the judgment
of higher authority; but in claiming that the way to salvation and virtue
was in the Church, as distinguished from the state, he broke sharply with
Aristotle's tradition of the polis. The Christian Church created the impetus
for one of Western civilization's most important social norms--the separation
of church and state. The function of the state was distinctly limited and
a person's greatest good was to be found outside its jurisdiction--in the
Church. Thus a religious concept profoundly changed the political/economic
institutions.

Over several hundred years this separation of church and state, the
Christian concept of all persons being equally the children of God, plus
the slow modernization of Europe led to what is today called the Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment's most important economic/political/philosophic result
is called "liberalism." Liberalism was derived from the philosophies
and attitudes of such great thinkers as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam
Smith, Rene Descartes, the Baron de La Montesquieu, and later Jeremy Bentham
and John Stuart Mill. The following point is very important: liberalism
is the epitome of political/economic institutions borrowing important concepts
from religious institutions. Liberalism has articulated in the political
and economic sphere the vital Christian axiom that all men are equally
children of God, and expanded it into the sentiments of basic white male
equality and the three principles I advanced previously: (1) a commitment
to skeptical reason and an uneasiness about both abstract philosophical
thinking and nonrational modes of knowledge, (2) tolerance, and (3) affirmation
of individual freedom .

Except for Locke--and even his case may be argued--none of the great
European philosophical contributors to liberalism from the seventeenth
through the nineteenth centuries was an orthodox Christian. But the classic
liberal thinkers simply did not propose to separate religion from their
liberal political and social thought. Indeed, for all of them religion
was integral to liberalism, most commonly as a philosophical and/or practical
base that would maintain a cohesive moral standard, a grounding for the
social order (Fowler, p.10-11). Thus liberalism was designed to work hand
in hand with religion to provide life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Liberalism by itself was never intended to do more than provide economic
and political security and enfranchise the individual to make significant
political and economic choices.

One of the most important political results of liberal thought was the
subsequent overthrow of European monarchies and their replacement by liberal
democratic political institutions. But it is at this point in European
history that religious institutional influence changed in character. Whereas
before, Christian theology drew political and economic progress forward
via its axiom that all are equally the children of God, now, as a result
of the Church's closeness to the European monarchical regimes--especially
the Catholic states, it stood against the very forces of progressive liberal
democracy that its influence had nurtured. And when the citizens, especially
the intellectuals, overthrew these monarchies they also rejected the Church
and Christianity (Warren W. Wagar, 1982).

In 1835 a troubled Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: "Christianity,
which has declared all men equal in the sight of God, cannot hesitate to
acknowledge all citizens equal before the law. But by a strange concatenation
of events, religion for the moment has become entangled with those institutions
which democracy overthrows, and so it is often brought to rebuff the equality
which it loves and to abuse freedom as its adversary, whereas by taking
it by the hand it could sanctify its striving" (1968, p.16).

Thus many Europeans could not separate Christianity's spiritual message
from its political and economic message, and, with the French Revolution
and the Revolutions of 1848, the European Church and Christianity were
severely discredited. While European intellectuals perceived Christianity
and modernity as opposites and many European commoners saw Christianity
as the monarchy's prostitute, European religious institutions refused to
accept liberalism's invigorating principles enfranchising individual choice--the
very principles that had grown naturally from Christianity's own theology.
The Church elected to become instead and in essence a thing apart. Liberalism,
on the other hand, found itself standing naked, as it were, with its individualism
and self-interest exposed and unmitigated by a relevant transcendent faith.
And thus the stage was set for the horrors of the twentieth century.

Shortly after the Revolutions of 1848, due to increasing industrialization,
mobilization and information, heretofore unnoticed problems began to bubble
to the surface. Karl Marx saw these problems as the result of internal
contradictions of capitalism. That the problems might have had a spiritual
cause likely never entered Marx's thoughts. He was, after all, an intellectual.
After WWI the fascists saw European society's political weakness, moral
relativism, and absence of community spirit. And once again the thought
that a more relevant and efficient spiritual system might be the solution
to European liberalism's problems never occurred to European leaders. As
far as the fascists and communists were concerned, Europe's social pathologies'
only solution was a radically different political/economic system. Two
world wars, a cold war, trillions of dollars, and many tens of millions
of lives were squandered in the conflicts that followed. Thus, as Fukuyama
has written, the twentieth century has experienced the costly trial and
rejection of both fascism and communism as alternatives to liberalism.
Liberalism has been declared, as of the dissolution of communism and the
publication of Fukuyama's article, the winner.

To summarize, I have described how European political and economic institutions
were transformed by adopting superior religious concepts. There is thus
precedent for these three institutions to carry on symbiotically--each
nurturing the others. I have also shown that since liberalism's birth this
symbiosis has changed in character. Now for the final element of my argument.
Assuming for the moment that I am correct, that religion does sooner or
later adopt liberal principles, what would this religion look like? I will
now take Robert Boothe Fowler's three liberal principles and apply them
to the spiritual medium.

Liberal Principle #1: "...a commitment to skeptical reason, an affirmation of pragmatic
intelligence, and an uneasiness about both abstract philosophical thinking
and nonrational modes of knowledge".

Liberal Spiritual Principle #1: Liberal religion will require a religionist to sincerely evaluate spiritual
theories--theologies--in relation to his/her own experience. It would by
no means require rejection of them all. It would require mutable theologies
and careful validation of appropriate abstract thoughts by observation
in the empirical world.

Liberal Principle #2: "...enthusiasm in principle (and increasingly in practice) for
tolerance not only in political terms but much more obviously in terms
of lifestyle and social norms."

Liberal Spiritual Principle #2: Liberal religion will respect other religionists' belief systems. And,
with qualifications similar to those that liberalism requires of economics
and politics will allow virtually complete spiritual freedom.

Liberal Principle #3: "...affirmation of the central importance of the individual and
individual freedom" .

Liberal Spiritual Principle #3: Liberal religion would hold that the individual has the right to have
his/her own concept of God. The individual's own concept of God is hereby
enfranchised by the world's religious institutions.

The previous example of liberalism applied to the spirit medium should
sound familiar. The liberal spiritual principles embody some of the most
important spiritual concepts in The Urantia Book. I will now cite some
specific examples that demonstrate how The Urantia Book validates and complements
these principles.

Liberal Spiritual Principle #1/Urantia Complement: The proof that revelation is revelation is this same fact of human experience:
the fact that revelation does synthesize the apparently divergent sciences
of nature and the theology of religion into a consistent and logical universe
philosophy, a co-ordinated and unbroken explanation of both science and
religion, thus creating a harmony of mind and satisfaction of spirit which
answers in human experience those questionings of the mortal mind which
craves to know how the Infinite works out his will and plans in matter,
with minds, and on spirit (The Urantia Book 1955, p.1106).

Reason is the proof of science, faith the proof of religion, logic the
proof of philosophy, but revelation is validated only by human experience
(p. 1106).

Liberal Spiritual Principle #2/Urantia Complement: From this day, for the remainder of his natural life, Ganid continued
to evolve a religion of his own. He was mightily moved in his own mind
by Jesus' broadmindedness, fairness, and tolerance (my emphasis). In all
their discussions of philosophy and religion this youth never experienced
feelings of resentment or reactions of antagonism (p.1467).

Nathaniel most revered Jesus for his tolerance. He never grew weary
of contemplating the broadmindedness and generous sympathy of the Son of
Man (p.1559).

Liberal Spiritual Principle #3/Urantia Complement: But I have come among you to proclaim a greater truth, one which many of the later prophets also grasped, that God loves you--every one of you--as
individuals' (p.1629).

The religion of the kingdom is personal, individual; the fruits, the
results, are familial, social. Jesus never failed to exalt the sacredness
of the individual as contrasted with the community (p.1862).

James Zebedee had asked, "Master, how shall we learn to see alike
and thereby enjoy more harmony among ourselves?" When Jesus heard
this question, he was stirred within his spirit, so much so that he replied:
"James, James, when did I teach you that you should all see alike?
I have come into the world to proclaim spiritual liberty to the end that
mortals may be empowered to live individual lives of originality and freedom
before God. I do not desire that social harmony and fraternal peace shall
be purchased by the sacrifice of free personality and spiritual originality.
What I require of you, my apostles, is spirit unity--and that you can experience
in the joy of your united dedication to the wholehearted doing of the will
of my Father in heaven." (p. 1591).

And finally, the passage that ensures the liberal dignity of The Urantia
Book itself:

"Partial, incomplete, and evolving intellects would be helpless
in the master universe, would be unable to form the first rational thought
pattern, were it not for the innate ability of all mind, high or low, to
form a universe frame in which to think. If mind cannot fathom conclusions,
if it cannot penetrate to true origins, then will such mind unfailingly
postulate conclusions and invent origins that it may have a means of logical
thought within the frame of these mind-created postulates. And while such
universe frames for creature thought are indispensable to rational intellectual
operations, they are, without exception, erroneous to a greater or lesser
degree.

Conceptual frames of the universe are only relatively true; they are
serviceable scaffolding which must eventually give way before the expansions
of enlarging cosmic comprehension." (p.1260)

The previous examples are merely representative of the overarching liberal
spirit of The Urantia Book. The book's central concept, that each individual
is indwelt by a fragment of the Father, validates liberalism's most profound
principle--the importance of the individual--throughout eternity. The teachings
of The Urantia Book are, in effect and in spirit, liberalism applied to
religion.

Conclusion

So the stage has been set. Christ's first visit to Urantia transformed
Europe's religious institutions with the message that every woman, man,
boy, or girl was a child of God. Later this religious concept and the concept
of the Christian Church as an institution of God led to a political event
that revolutionized European history: the separation of church and state.
Still later the world's political and economic institutions borrowed the
salient Christian concept of spiritual equality and enfranchised individual
political and economic liberty under the banner of liberalism. The results
were astounding. As Fukuyama has pointed out, today, with the dissolution
of communism virtually all the world's nations understand and accept in
their various contexts political and economic liberalism. The Supreme has
done its work well.

And now is the time for the Spirit of Christ to come full circle--from
the religious institutions that taught spiritual equality, to political
and economic institutions that supported the primacy of the individual,
and now finally back again to the religious institutions which will one
day enfranchise individual spiritual choices. This is where The Urantia
Book answers a critical evolutionary need. Today, high politics and economics
define liberalism in as many different ways as there are experts--and there
are many experts. Although I believe it is inevitable, it could take many
decades for a liberalism so loosely defined in terms of politics and economics
to slowly seep into the religious establishment. For the liberal message
to efficiently transform world religious institutions it must be sufficiently
focused on the spiritual. The Urantia Book systematically defines liberalism
in spiritual terms. The time for the struggle approaches.

Robert Booth Fowler writes that current membership in mainline Protestant
churches--the churches attended largely by the educated elites in America,
is well below their 1950's proportionate strength of the total U.S. population
and in absolute numbers (1989, p.96). Further, these churches are losing
a good number of their young adults (20-35 years old) "...because
they are simply no longer interested in religion, certainly organized religion,
though they normally claim to believe in God and even to have spiritual
interests of some sort" p.22-23). Andrew Greeley comments that Catholics
"...blithely practice a selective (or individualistic and subjective)
Catholicism, choosing those parts of the religion they like and ignoring
or even denouncing those parts they don't like" (1984, ch. 1).

Liberalism is slowly seeping in, like it or not. But many of the people
Fowler and Greeley describe are political leaders, managers of businesses,
lawyers, doctors and educators who wander around in a spiritual nether
world, making important decisions outside the context of salient transcendent
faiths. The religion that these people are searching for is liberalized
religion--the religion of Jesus--the religion described in The Urantia
Book. Just as the Christian Church provided the inspiration for liberalism's
transformation of the political and economic world, The Urantia Book expresses
a liberalism that will inspire the transformation of the world's religions
into institutions capable of answering the spiritual needs of a liberal
world, and in so doing The Urantia Book/liberal religion will finally resolve
the contradictions that have tormented so many souls in the twentieth century.